February 21, 2025
I’ll see you in court. Maine’s Governor pushed back on President Trump in person and in real time today over Trump’s executive order banning trans women and girls from competing in women’s sports. Here’s the moment.
This all happened this morning at the White House during the regular meeting of all the nation’s governors. And that exchange between the president and the governor of Maine Janet Mills happened right as trump was wrapping up his hour-long remarks to the group.
I bring this exchange up for a few reasons.
One — we don’t normally see governors or any political officials go back and forth like that with president Trump. They usually push back on him publicly through the media. They may do it in private. But so far in this second trump term this is the first time we are seeing it happen in person in full public view.
The other reason why I am sharing this with you is because of this tactic that President Trump has been using. He did it in his first term and we’ve heard him threatening to withhold federal funds from a state that doesn’t comply with him and his orders multiple times in this term as well. Most recently we heard him threaten this same thing to California’s governor Gavin Newsom during the LA wildfires.
The reality is it’s not entirely clear that he can even follow through with that threat…at least not legally. Why? Well because of what I have been reporting on this page for years. The constitution of the United States squarely puts the power of the purse in the hands of congress not the president. It’s up to congress how federal money is spent. That’s why we’re seeing so many lawsuits against all that president trump and Elon Musk’s doge team are doing to try and cut federal spending on their own without any authorization of congress. Trump is winning some of those cases but he’s definitely losing some of them too. And on top of that separation of powers constitutional argument, the states are also invoking their 10th amendment rights. If you aren’t familiar, the 10th amendment really puts a hard limit on the powers of the federal government saying that the only authority that the federal government has is listed in the constitution, any powers not granted to the federal government specifically in the constitution are squarely given to the states and their people. Not to mention there are countless laws on the books including the impoundment act that compels the president to spend the money the way congress intended.
Yes – multiple states have sued over this specific trump executive order about trans athletes, but the reality is this is actually a much bigger conversation about executive power. Trump and his team are obviously trying to expand the power of the executive branch – and in the end this is all going to likely end up in front of the Supreme Court.
